Inversions, Conversions, Perversions

In an early scene in Lexi Freiman’s new novel The Book of Ayn, the narrator, an Ayn Rand acolyte aptly named Anna, runs into two young women at a “dissident soiree” in Manhattan. She “recognized them from a downtown scene that was vaguely socialist and acutely nihilistic. The two had a podcast and were famous for cooking spaghetti for war criminals and speaking the word ‘retard’ to power.” After a brief conversation concerning waging war against the “Victim Caliphate,” Anna realizes that the duo was a mirror image of her own life. The two podcasters are obvious stand-ins for the real-life hosts of the Red Scare podcast—the center of a countercultural scene that celebrates the canceling of cancel culture.